What exactly is the point of wireless charging on a laptop? Aren't most laptops used on mains power most of the time? Will it have a power lead as well or are you supposed to use it next to the wireless charger if you don't want your batteries running down?

Come on... use ya noggin.. wireless charging for other devices.. mobile phones.. pdas... ifuds.. etc...etc

Troll.. cause it most likely was!

I for one want a giant, red alert 2 style tesla coil to charge mine!

1) You'll be the only one with a wireless charging laptop, so you'll be the only one using your expensive charger, so you might as well...use a bloody wired one!

2) This will take longer to charge the same battery and will result in stupid amounts of energy loss - very environmentally friendly, I'm sure.

3) If the idea of this is that you can pick it up and move around, what's to stop you moving in and out of range, constantly ragging your battery until it dies?

4) For all this and more, it'll cost a small fortune.

To hell with that shit. I want my laptop to charge in an hour, not trickle charge for 6 hours.

I'm no physics student (chemistry actually) but won't the wireless charging (generating a nice big magnetic field) cause quite a lot of damage to any magnetic storage like say a hard disk?

Or it the latitude range getting a little too complicated?

Now a completely sealed / waterproof laptop with a wireless dock could be a very cool thing.

I agree RA2 style tesla would be very cool!

Just because Tesla was barking mad and died broke and crazed, it doesn't mean he wasn't a genius.

'Bout time we had this kinda thing - and how about jetpacks?

in public environments. The TED demonstration of the technology was amazing, but you can see the tin hat brigade going insane about it being present anywhere public. It is non-radioactive, but I'm sure someone will find a way to enter litigation.

As for the efficiency, the technology is very young and no doubt it can theoretically be improved.

I'm amazed that Dell have put it into a laptop this early so maybe other agreements are on their way?

Do not wear a watch when charging

Not suitable for people with pace-makers

'nuff said

I smell bullshit.

I'm pretty sure that this is merely induction charging, meaning you have to place the laptop onto a special surface/mat. This would be *slightly* more convenient than plugging in a cable, but only just so.

The thing that always, _always_ breaks on Dell laptops which is a real, utter PITA to fix and usually leads to buying a new one is the connector on the mobo for the power supply. If I bought a laptop with wireless charging, I'd probably not need to buy another one for four or five years - especially as I wouldn't be putting Windows on it (you can always replace the RAM, HD and battery, after all).

For that reason alone, I postulate that Dell won't put wireless charging in this laptop.

I think BANG Goes The Theory should show kids how to build their own tesla charger.

I don't want this. All you'll achieve, other that a toasted groin, is a slightly lower efficiency; precisely at a point in history where the efficiency of devices is increasing in importance.

@ Sarev: You can rest assured that if it's always the power sockets that fail first usually, then in this it'll be the coil in the charge plate, or the plug connecting the charge plate, or something equally simple that'll go wrong. All you'll do is move the point of failure to somewhere you're not expecting.